First Look: Vintage Pattern Lending Library 1932 Ladies Frock

Well Friends, between injuries, holidays and ice storms $25V has not been very active in the new year. There's also some other surprises in the works that you'll have to stay tuned to see. What I can tell you is that $25 Vintage is getting a total makeover in February including a new website design and logo that have been in production here in Haus of Nancy. 

Well, I hope that your weekends went well. Ours was great. For starters we're finally free of our house! Georgia Snowtastrophe 2011 has finally ended! We had 55 degree Saturday which really helped the thaw out all the roads. Looks like life around here is finally getting back to normal. 

The only good part about being iced in is that I was able to get a lot done around the house. I caught up on all the laundry, I reorganized the master bedroom closet, we cleaned out the upstairs office so we can paint and get it ready to become my sewing room, we reserved our church for the wedding, I cleaned all the base boards in my house, I put away the rest of the holiday decorations, we recycled the tree (which was sadder than expected) and we may or may not have had a Robotech marathon on Sunday. I never said we weren't dorks....

But the most exciting news of the weekend? Ta da!

My Vintage Pattern Lending Library Pattern came in the mail! I've never ordered one of her patterns before so I was super excited to open this thing up and take a look. I thought I'd give you all my first impressions of the pattern before I started chopping it up and turning it into January's dress project. Call this a mini-review.

My first impression of the pattern was very good. It was packed very very well. My mail man had forced the shipping envelope into my mailbox and creased the cardboard "do not bend" envelope right down the middle. The outer packaging also tore while I was trying to pry it out of the mailbox. After an angry phone call to the post office I peeled back the shipping envelope and was ecstatic to find that pattern was still in pristine condition. Awesome!

The pattern is packed in a heavy duty plastic zip-top sleeve and printed on good quality paper stock. My favorite part was the actual pattern pieces themselves. They are printed on two large sheets of vellum and are very tear resistant. I tried tearing an empty corner as a test and it took quite a bit of strength to do it. 

She's added seam allowances to the pattern which I really appreciate. She's also added things like tucks and darts in easily readable red ink. That's going to be a major time saver.

I also really appreciate additions like the dotted line above which will save me quite a bit of time on sleeves down the road if I want to make this dress as intended. 

Overall I am really happy with the quality of this pattern. I haven't had a chance to read through the instructions yet, but so far I'm really impressed. She has really added a lot of time saving features to things that always slow me up when working with unprinted patterns. The only down side to the pattern that I see is that it is one size only. She gives fabric recommendations if you do chose to scale up the pattern, but otherwise you're on your own. 

It was a bit more than I like to pay for a pattern, but with all the features VPLL has added I have to say that this dress pattern was a great value. I paid $12.00 for it and I know that the velum pattern pieces are going to stand up to multiple uses. 

Sew-a-long Update: Day 1

Started working on Lisette's Ruby Shorts sew along last night. According to the schedule Monday was the day to have our pattern cut out and assembled. It took me a little longer than I expected because this pattern needed to be printed out on a home printer and then assembled piece by piece. My printer is not all that great so there were slight differences in the page sizes making it very difficult to fit all the pages together smoothly. In the end I did a fair enough job.

I'm a hybrid size. The waist needs to be the 34" size, but my hips need to be the 36". So I scribbled some notes on the paper, which trust me are nowhere near the amount of pattern destruction I normally cause. I'm a serious note-taker and most patterns are left with tons of little cryptic writings all over them, practically filling up every available space on the instruction sheet or Deltor.

This is just step one, since I took this picture I filled up the big space in the middle with math. So now you all know my measurements. Hopefully this will not come back to bite me. I'm a little bottom heavy, but I like to say that it's just the Junk in my Trunk. The next step was to fit the pattern. I roughly chopped out all the pieces and then when back and fit them to my size.

 
Thank you multisized patterns for making pattern adjustment incredibly easy. I chose not to shorten the shorts, even though the pattern is intended for someone 5'6". I wanted them to look a little more vintage, so I wanted the waist to be long and as well as the legs. I actually considered lengthening the legs a few inches, but decided against that. Long shorts will just make me look short and squat. So I stuck to only fitting the waist. I'm not making a muslin of this pattern due to the time schedule so keep your fingers crossed and hope I made the right decision here.

  

I was a little upset to find out that the Husqvarna machine I was supposed to be getting back on Tuesday, then Thursday, is now going to be away for an indefinite period of time. Which is seriously frustrating, considering I joined this sew along fully expecting to be able to use my button hole attachment. Now I'm going to have to use my vintage Dressmaker 230 which has been slowly dying on me AND make handmade button holes. Ah well, c'est la vie. This will be a good last project for Dressmaker until I can afford to have her refurbished. (Sewing machine repairs are not under $25, in case anyone was wondering...)

So after doing all the chopping and cutting it's off to the fabric store today to pick up a yard and a half of fabric, some fusible interfacing, 8 buttons, and thread. All that in only $25! Wish me luck! I'm all powered up after having the best thing in the world for breakfast!

Yum! Half a cup of goat's milk yogurt from Whole Foods, frozen cherries, a handful of flax meal, handful of raw sunflower seeds, shredded unsweetened coconut, and a palmful of pecans! This is quickly becoming my favorite power breakfast, when I just don't feel in the mood for green sludge.